The Reservoir by Rosemarie Naramore

summer for as long as I can remember.  Two summers ago, when my sister graduated from high school, she didn’t want to come here with us.”  Thomas paused and swallowed.  “She had made plans with her friends to drive to California, but my parents wouldn’t let her go.”
    “But she was eighteen,” Niqui said.
    Thomas shook his head.  “No, she was seventeen.  Her birthday is … er … was August 31st.”
    Zack nodded.  “Okay, so your parents nixed the trip and made her come here instead.”
    “Yes.  She wasn’t happy at all.”
    “She didn’t like it up here?” Holly asked.
    “Oh, no, I mean, yes, she loved it up here.  She loves … er … loved the water.  She was … is like a fish.  I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who loved … loves the water like she did … er … does.”
    He shook his head in frustration.  “I don’t know how to refer to her anymore—loved, loves, did, does, was, is…”  He ran a hand through his hair and his eyes teared up.  “How do you refer to a ghost?  I mean, she’s not alive, but, she’s still sorta here… in the lake, I mean.”
    Holly’s goose bumps returned with a vengeance, and when Kendall scooted closer to Daniel, and Niqui moved closer to her, grabbing a hold of her hand, she knew her friends were as apprehensive as she was at the moment.
     “Okay, listen, you just told us again that she’s in the lake….”  Zack glanced at Holly, his eyes registering his confusion, before he turned back to Thomas. 
    “She is in the lake,” Thomas said matter-of-factly.  He glanced around the faces around the table.  “You’ve seen her.  Don’t try to deny it.”
    “Daniel, Zack, and I have seen her,” Holly told him.
    Thomas leapt from his chair and fist-pumped the air.  “I’m not crazy!”
    “You’re not crazy,” Daniel assured him.
    “Assuming it’s true your sister’s in the lake, or, presumably, her ghost haunts the lake, how did she get there, and why does she remain here?” Zack asked.
    “Cassie doesn’t haunt anything,” Thomas said angrily.  “But I’ll answer the last part first,” he said, sitting down in the chair.  “I think she stays here for a couple reasons.  One—I think she wants to tell me something, and two, like I told you before, she loved the water.  Always has.  But she always loved this reservoir, this country.  She used to say if she could live anywhere in the world, it would be on the shores of this lake.”
    Zack nodded.  “It is beautiful up here.”  He paused briefly, thinking, but then met Thomas’s eyes.  “Thomas, what happened to your sister?”
    He shrugged.  “We don’t know for sure.  Like I was saying, we came up here two summers ago.  Cassie was upset, because she had made those plans with her friends.  Anyway, our first night here, she got in a fight with my mom.  She was pleading with my mom to let her take that road trip to California.  Mom said, ‘No way.’”
    “What happened then?”
    “Cassie slammed out of the cabin.  We heard the jet ski motor, and then she took off.  Mom and Dad figured she just needed time to cool off, but they were worried, because it was almost dark.”  He paused for emphasis.  “It’s dangerous on that big, bad reservoir in the dark.”
    Holly shivered again and wished she was beside Zack.  His strong arms around her would be welcome at the moment, well … any moment, she mused.
    “And then?” Zack encouraged Thomas to keep talking.
    “She was gone a long time.  Mom especially was scared, because it’s so dark out there at night, and there are always logs floating on the top…”  He sighed.  “Anyway, Cassie didn’t come back.  Dad tried to take our boat out to look for her, but he turned back because he couldn’t see anything.”
    “What happened then?” Daniel asked.
    “Dad has a friend who works at the Sheriff’s Office.  He called him and the guy told us to stay put, that they’d send a deputy